Mobile Experts Disagree on Who Should Protect Privacy

Users of mobile apps need more information about the ways those apps use their personal information, a group of experts agreed Thursday, but they didn’t agree on who is most responsible for protecting user privacy, writes pcworld.com.

Apple and Google can better police their app marketplaces, although both companies have several good privacy protections, said Todd Moore, founder of app vendor TMSoft, during a discussion on mobile app privacy at the State of the Mobile Net conference in Washington, D.C. The operators of the iPhone and Android app marketplaces are in the best position to enforce privacy controls and set rules limiting the amount of information apps can collect, he said.

One app marketplace required Moore’s sound app to have access to information about whether the phone was being used for a voice call, so that the app could turn off sounds during a call. Some TMSoft customers have questioned why the app wants that access, Moore said. “I don’t want that level of access,” he added.

But Ashkan Soltani, an independent security and privacy researcher, said app developers bear most of the responsibility for protecting privacy. App developers need to police themselves, given that many consumers don’t understand the privacy implications of the apps they download, he said.

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